The high oil price may begin to take its toll

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We have all been pretty lucky so far. Over the past four years oil prices have soared ever higher, yet the world economy has just kept on motoring – literally and metaphorically.

While the twin oil shocks of the Seventies brought global growth to a juddering halt and plunged the West into prolonged and painful recessions, things have been very different this time around – so far, at least.

As oil prices have risen from a quite-hard-to-recall $30 a barrel as recently as the end of 2003 to $50 in 2004, $60 in 2005, $70 in 2006 and, in recent